Cookies and Temples
by I'll get to it.eventually
Summary: A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a lost child who would later be known as Jack Frost met a foot soldier who would later become the greatest General in history. Right now, though, he's a little more concerned about whether this weirdo is going to feed him or not. Oneshot series.
1. Prologue

**This is a oneshot series based on my other story, but so you don't have to read that, this chapter has everything you need to know.**

**People who have read my other story, go to the next chapter!**

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**A fairytale, as told to a Prince by a Queen.**

Once upon a time, there was a race of people who were called The Elementals. These people were just like everyone else, smart, passionate, and happy, with one difference. This difference wasn't something big and important, and it wasn't something that made them bad people. It was a gift, from the stars to their favorite children, so that they could play in new and special ways. The Elementals could each control an element-nay, they could _embody_ that element. They and their families and friends all had Elements, and they lived quite happily alongside the rest of the universe, laughing with their joys and crying with their tragedies. But that didn't last forever.

You see, other races, for all they were fantastical and splendid creatures themselves, were envious of the Elementals and the powers they were blessed with. Especially the men. They muttered that Elementals weren't safe, that they were waiting for a chance to attack and rule. Fear was not fought outright in those days as in these, not in the forms of Fearlings and Dream Pirates. It was a sneaky thing then, violent but uncontested until it's too late. And the Fear caused by jealousy was particularly powerful. So the Fear deepened. Night and day, it manipulated the hearts and minds of the men and women of the Colorful Age, until they hated and feared the Elementals. It created animosity and betrayal between neighbors, and soon the Elementals were hated by even the children, who watched and learned from their parents.

Finally, something gave way. A Fire Elemental had fallen in love with a young maiden, and her furious father had forbidden the pair from marrying. Farense hated Elementals with all of his heart, and he wanted to kill his daughter for daring to love one. So he tried to separate them as much as he could. Enil and Mereditia could not be separated, though. They loved each other with a passion few had seen before, and even fewer had experienced for themselves. They were a fated match. Mereditia's father, Farense, finally issued a challenge—if Enil could fairly defeat him in single combat, he would allow him to marry his love. There was a catch, though. Farense had only said that the combat had to be fair and one-on-one, he didn't specify that Enil had to be the one playing fair. If Farense cheated, Enil would not be able to call him out on it without admitting that the combat was unfair and losing Meredita.

Enil saw this, of course, for Elementals have always been intelligent, but he loved Meredita deeply and he accepted despite her pleas for him to stop. Farense came the next day to fight Enil, who had prepared to fight his hardest against a single, cheating opponent. After all, a man could never hope to beat an Elemental.

He had not anticipated that Farense, the madman, would have hired another man to kill his own daughter. An assassin appeared out of nowhere with a sword, dashing towards Meriditia, and-

Enil saw in a second what he had to do. He could finish the battle one-on-one and keep his honor; or he could kill the assassin, break the rules, and lose his love forever, but ensure her safety. He lashed out in an instant and killed the assassin.

While Enil was distracted calming Meriditia, Farense took out his bow and nocked an arrow slicked with oil. Elementals let out more of their Element than usual when upset, and Enil would surely catch it on fire in his shock over nearly losing his love. Farense drew back carefully and shot his own daughter through the heart.

As he had planned all along, the oil caught fire, and Enil, unable to stifle his own Element, watched her burn helplessly. Farense sneaked away as Enil burned the forest they had fought to the ground in in his rage and grief.

When he got back to their village, Farense cried, "Murder! Murder! That flaming _monster_ has murdered my daughter!"

The villagers gathered around, first confused and murmuring, and then more and more furious until they were but a mob, of one mind, wishing only to hurt and destroy the Elementals.

Enil died that day, and the Elementals were furious.

The next day, men's cities burned and froze over and drowned. Crops failed. Plants refused to grow, and trees overtook houses. Blades dulled and rusted overnight. It was a small massacre.

The men killed Elementals, trapped them alone and stabbed them or hit them and killed them.

War raged on for centuries, until both armies were devastated. There was little left for either race, but both were fighting for their very survival, until a final, decisive blow was struck. In a battle called the Battle of Color, the Colorful Age ended. The Elementals and men put their last soldiers forward, soldiers that were little more than children or the old; unarmed, desperate soldiers fighting only for survival. That day the Elementals fled from battle for the first time since the war had started. They finally knew Fear.

The Elementals ran from battle, ran from the solar system, fled the galaxy, kept running until they could no longer be seen even by their parents, the stars. They found a quiet planet to hide in, and began to live and grow again. The tiny lives of men passed, and they were forgotten.

However, their war was not finished.

The Elementals now knew Fear.

Slowly, their Fear consumed them, one by one, until only their royalty and their guards were free of it. The people fought so bravely...but for nothing.

And that brings me to _you_, my child, the last desperate hope of the Elementals. The little prince, the only Elemental which will never, _never_ know Fear. My child of frost. It won't be long until I turn into a corrupted Elemental myself, and you will be our last free Element. The men, who used to be our friends...they call us Fearlings now, and Dream Pirates. I hope you never have to see another Elemental again. Goodbye, my child! Bring joy, laugh in the face of Fear as a true Elemental! May your wind blow ever bolder and your ice ever colder!

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**This is the basic premise of the whole thing. Earth isn't even an idea yet, and Kozmotis Pitchner is a relatively unknown foot soldier. Sandy is running around in his star, though.**


	2. Crash-Landing in a Strange Land

**When Jack and Kozzy first meet, Jack POV. Koz's POV is in my other story.**

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I wasn't really sure what was going on.

First, I'm flying around, chattering away about my latest adventures to the stars, watching for a new place to explore, and then I'm surrounded not half a second later. It's Fearlings, my-former-fellow Elementals.

Just a note about Fearlings: If you see one, run. They are evil, monstrous things that refuse to die when I ask them to.

They used to be part of this species called Elementals, but some wars happened and they were consumed by Fear. I don't think there are many Elementals left, but sometimes there are whispers among the stars that they're sure there's a colony out there, or someone escaped. It's always a dead end, though. We've looked everywhere.

I'm the prince of Elementals, the heir to the crown, blah blah blah. That means I've got some decent firepower behind me-well, ice power-, but it also means that if I'm not careful about how much Fear I let myself feel, I'll die and turn into a Fearling. And since I was kind of surrounded, I had to get out of there fast.

Now, running on paths of starlight and frolicking in the heavens is grand, but it doesn't help you escape Fearlings. So the best I could do was run towards the largest hub of Belief I could find, in hopes of finding a child. I'm a child myself, a very old child, but my belief in my safety was being somewhat shaken by the dozen or so Fearlings trying to kill me. If I could find a child that absolutely believed that harm wouldn't come near them, I could just orbit their planet until I caught the Fearlings alone. I could kill one Fearling on my own, maaaybe two on a good day.

The Fearlings chased me as I ran, starshine to meteor to supernova, but I could feel it just ahead. Belief so strong I could be safe! Sure, it was dangerous to go so near the men who had hated my people way back when, but Fearlings were more important. Men didn't even remember the Elementals.

A Fearling nearly caught my ankle on a jump that didn't quite go far enough. I couldn't get caught now, I was almost there...!

A Fearling tackled me, or perhaps overestimated my speed, and we were both thrown off of the starry paths we'd been using. Dang it. I was falling...I didn't want the Elementals to end like this, not destroyed by our own...

No!_ Nope,_ I decided,_ this is not how I die! Not here, not like this, not today!_

Silly me. I should have known: All I needed to do to survive was believe I would.

I constructed ice around myself, trying to see where I was falling to. I wasn't close enough to the Belief center to be falling there, but I was certainly going to a planet. The Fearlings were falling with me, just behind.

The planet was so pretty...

I braced myself for impact, flooded the ice around me with enough power to survive impact...

Crunch!

I knew no more.

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When I woke up, it was to the jarring sound of metal on ice. There was a scraping, too, and I could only assume I was under attack by...something. Dream Pirates, maybe? Where was I? I was...right! A planet. I'd never been on a planet before, not since I left my own. I didn't think there were Dream Pirates on planets, but there might be. The stars had never told me.

Maybe it was men, I joked within my own mind.

It was probably just some natural planet-y thing that happened on planets.

...

I wished I'd left my eyes open before freezing myself. It was getting really annoying not being able to see.

Hmmm...

Finally, just as the scraping noise was driving me _crazy_, I felt something. There was something destroying the ice near my skin.

This was an attack.

I readied myself to attack before whoever it was realized that I was awake. _Come on_, I thought _remain calm, get ready to get rid of the threat, find a way out before the Fearlings find me...I can do this._

Finally, I judged the ice thin enough to break free of without help.

In quick movement, I jerked my upper body and shattered the ice around it. It took a little more effort to free my legs, but I managed. On my guard immediately, I growled out, "Who are you? What do you want?"

In front of me was...a group of five men. _Men_. This...this could be fine, or this could be really, really _bad_. Men were dangerous savages, and they hated the Elementals, but they didn't remember that we existed. Quickly, I scanned the men.

They all had swords made of what I suspected to be star cores, but I couldn't be sure. They wore matching tunics of black and gold, but one had a much more ornate one. He was huge and muscular, and looked angry. Or maybe scared...? Maybe he was happy, I wasn't good with expressions. Most stars didn't have faces.

The next to his right was slim and had blonde hair. He also had pale skin and the lightest blue eyes I'd ever seen-I almost wondered if he was a wind Elemental, but of course he wasn't.

Near and slightly behind him was another man with ruddy brown hair and a red, round face. He looked friendly, but I didn't trust him. Men were liars.

In the space that had been behind me before I'd sprung out of their circle was an old, greying man. He had short-cropped brown hair and tanned skin, with a short stature. His sword was almost imperceptibly shaking in his hand. There was another man to the left, but I was more interested in the old man.

"Should you really be here? You look a little old for this-are you okay?" I began to step forward to him when the big man with the fancy tunic shoved his sword in my face.

"Hey!" I yelped. "Watch it!" Just to show him that I didn't want a fight, I reached up and froze his sword, shattering it. Not star cores, then, the swords just glowed funny. I wouldn't have been able to destroy a star core.

Movement was registered in the corner of my eye. The man I'd been ignoring earlier in favor of Oldie had put down his sword. At least these guys didn't want a fight any more than I did. I looked the guy in the eye carefully, wondering if he would feed me. If they didn't want to fight me, I was really hungry. But you never know, some people just don't give you food when they decide not to try to kill you. He was flailing in ways that were hilarious trying to communicate with me, so these guys were probably nice.

Or so I thought. Turns out they really were trying to kill me. The man's peace offer must have been to distract me, because his buddies immediately attacked. The fancy guy was first, grabbing Blondie's sword and slashing wildly. Mean! So I impaled him.

His buddies looked fairly upset, so they tried to attack me with their swords, which turned out to be more like blunt sticks. It was child's play-literally-to freeze their hearts and ice over their lungs. I only had to stab Nice Guy and Fancy! It was all very clean, unlike killing Fearlings. Those things got _everywhere_.

Huh. All the men were dead. That wasn't very long.

Well, there was the decoy guy. He was standing there looking horrified. Now that I looked at him, he was _tall_. He could pass for a star. He was almost glowingly golden, his skin and eyes both. He had a shock of black hair, and he was standing very straight. He didn't make a move to attack, so I stooped down to grab his sword. Ever since the Colorful Ages, and maybe even before, Elementals _never_ fought an unfair battle. Not like men.

Strangely, he didn't seem very interested in his sword. Strange fellow kept staring at me as he sloooowly accepted his sword. He put it in an ornate sheath around his waist and kept _staring_ at me. It was _creepy_.

"If you're no trying to kill me...um...I'm just gonna, uh, I'm gonna leave now...you are a strange, strange man..." I mumbled awkwardly to him, and began walking off. There had to be adventure somewhere on this planet, and I had never been dirtside before!

After about five minutes of sand dunes and other nastiness that wasn't good for cold people, I became aware of the fact that I had a stalker. Tall, Dark, and Creepy was following me.

"Um, I get that I'm really cool. Really, I do. I like me, too. But could you maybe stop following me? Because it's really creepy, and I don't know you."

He didn't respond, hiding behind a sand dune behind me. Really? Sand dunes were terrible hiding spots.

I walked over and picked him up by the back of the neck on his tunic. Well, I tried, but it was awkward because the guy was a giant. I placed him beside me and pointed at him.

"You? You stay _here_," I stressed, gesturing at the air beside me, "where I can _see_ you. You do _not_," I scowled at him for extra effect, "wander off so you can get reinforcements. That breaks etiquette, and it's no fair to fight five-on-one. You do not kidnap me, that's mean and I don't like it. You stop staring at me. If we're getting really fancy, you could blink every once in a while. Got it?"

There's no answer beyond a mildly puzzled head-bob, but I decided that that's an affirmative. It doesn't really matter either way, so I continued on my exploration.

After a while, I almost forgot that he was there. We came across a forest, and we helped each other blaze paths without even really realizing it. I caught myself freezing plants out of his way more than once, and he almost seems startled when he cuts vines out of my way with his dull sword.

Soon, we came across my favorite thing-water! A whole bunch of it, all collected in one place! It was so cool...! I sat down with a happy flurry of starsnow, and looked at it. It was so strange! Normally I only saw a little water at once, and then only frozen water! I touched some. Liquid water was _wet_. It got all over you! I shared my discoveries with my companion, who seemed more bemused than impressed. Well, he could do that, and I would keep the wonder that was water to myself. So there!

After a while, I remembered something. I was pretty sure I had done it on my birth planet at some point...

It took a while to figure out the logistics within my mind, but eventually I got it. If I froze the pond over really quickly and really smoothly, we could ice skate! Well, I could. He probably couldn't, those things on his feet-_were_ they his feet? How odd-were black and clunky and didn't look even a little like skating-shoes. Well, I could sort something out...my eyes lit on his fancy scabbard. Of course! I'd put little dull blades on his feet! If they were made of stronger stuff than the lake's ice, it should work well enough to skate right across the surface. And then he'd be so grateful he'd give me food! I was _starving_.

I got up and froze the pond, then pointed at my feet.

"Come on, I want food, so let's do this! It'll be fun!" I cheered.

He was giving me a funny look, but ice skating was more important than strange men. He took off his feet-gross! Who _does_ that?-and handed them to me.

"Um, okay, that was not exactly how I was expecting that to go, but I guess..." I froze some blades onto the decapitated feet and gave them back to him. Maybe it was a cultural thing, and I'd have to freeze them back on to him? Whatever it was, it was weird. Then, lo and behold, he _put his feet back on_. That was just _disturbing_. Eugh.

Well, whatever _that_ was, I was here to ice skate, and ice skating was what I was going to do. I yanked him onto the ice, making sure to rub some stardust off on him. Stardust has made people more willing to play with me for as long as I can remember. The best part is, no one can tell it's there unless you see the sparkles around people's eyes! It wasn't mine, though, so I tried to use it for good. I yanked Mister Military out onto the ice.

What followed was hours and hours of play. I showed off, he flailed comically, and it was the best day ever! It was my first day ever since leaving my planet, too. There are no days off of planets, with no sun to count them with. It was good.

Eventually, though, it was time to go and the stars were calling me. I wanted to go back to the galaxies. I held my hands out for my companion's...feet...and he gave them to me. I summoned a dagger of ice to me-I loved those things-and began to hack off the blades when he stopped me.

"What, you wanna keep these? That's not gonna be easy to walk in, I warn you. It looks awfully wobbly." I cautioned him. He took out his sword, keeping the tip down and away from me.

"Um, are you trying to fight or talk? Because it kind of looks like you're proposing a fight, but I kind of like you, so I don't really wanna kill you..."

He pointed to his sword, ran a finger along the flat of its blade, and pointed to my dagger.. Then he mimed a fight and pointed to the woods.

Well, if that's how he wanted to play it.

I summoned my second dagger and prepared to fight him. He made upset noises and put his sword down again.

"Look, what do you want? You keep not fighting me! Do you...?" He began gesturing fiercely, interrupting me by sheer force of _wanting_ to communicate. He pointed at my daggers and made discarding gestures, and kicked his own sword towards me. Then he made a little finger-man walk around on one hand, then attacked it with the other. Then he pointed to the sword at my feet.

"Wait, wait, stop hurting yourself, how are you still alive when you keep cutting off your feet and attacking your hands? Oh, are you trying to get me to stop you from getting hurt? I get it! You're trying to ask if I'll help you not cut off any more appendages! Sure, why didn't you say so? You can pay me in food. Here, here's a sword that actually works, unlike that sad thing you just gave me."

Well, I couldn't very well stop him from taking off his remaining hand if he had nothing to take it off with. I replicated his sword, but I made it sharper and stronger and icy. Better, in other words. I handed it to him, and took his old sword to give to the stars. They might think it's cool. Then I gave him his feet back, and he pointed back the way we came.

"Aw, we have to go back already? I guess we can go there before I leave, if you've got food there. I _am_ hungry." I said.

We skated and raced back to the sand dunes, and eventually back to the bodies of the men I'd killed. There he got off the ice and gave me his feet. I was getting pretty used to this foot-removal, and I was pretty sure it wasn't what I was supposed to be stopping him from doing, but I cut the blades off and gave them back quickly just in case. We continued towards wherever we were going to, and I almost forgot that he was a _man_ and likely to kill me.

Then a Fearling attacked.

I really hate Fearlings. In case I haven't made that clear, they're icky and I don't like them.

But apparently this guy didn't know what that whole running thing was for, because he attacked the thing, little idiot.

The Fearling lunged at him, but he blocked it with his sword, trying to _kick_ it while it was busy with that. Why anyone would try to _kick_ a Fearling was beyond me, it was hard enough to kill them with a real blade.

The Fearling knocked his leg out of the way, unbalancing him, but he used the momentum to skip straight past the thing and get behind it. He spun, swinging his sword, but this time it caught it and disarmed him.

That looked a lot like the kind of thing I was supposed to be preventing from happening. Sword-removal and foot-removal are similar in many ways.

"Fine, since you're so stubborn about fighting instead of doing the smart thing and running, let's do this right," I told him very seriously. To minimize mess, I ran in and froze the fearling-knifing it would get guts _everywhere_. It wasn't expecting me, so I had an easy shot.

The man made a startled noise, and the Fearling shattered.

I realized then how that action could have been taken. I had killed his enemy for him. I had given him a sword. We could be misconstrued as _allies_! An Elemental and a man! That was just...It was unheard of since the Colorful Ages! But I knew what to do.

I ran. I ran as fast as I could back to the forest, back to the lake.

"Whew! That was a near miss! Well, good thing I'll never have to see _him_ again."

How very, very wrong I was.

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**Yup, Jack's first reaction was to ignore Kozzy in favor of old guys who aren't even main characters. He's charming like that.**


	3. AAANGS-Actually, just fluff

I played and ran around and explored for the rest of the night. I only ran into Fearlings twice, and both times I escaped without hurting them-I was a little too spooked to actually kill them, lest it present more evidence that I was allying the Elementals with the men. Even if I was the last one around, I didn't want that to be how the dregs of our race ended up.

For some reason, no matter how hard I played, no matter how many places and objects and creatures and vistas I found...I kept coming back to that man.

Why? I didn't understand, it wasn't like he was important or anything.

I ran the last couple yards to the top of the mountain I'd been climbing. The view was breathtaking, several miles around of nighttime forest and desert, with the hints of light in some places, all heavily surrounded by walls.

I wondered if the man belonged to one of those lights. It wasn't unreasonable to think, he was golden like a star, and the lights were also like little stars.

I wondered what he was doing.

_Stop it! Stop thinking about him, it doesn't _matter_ what he's doing!_

It didn't matter that he had been nice to me.

It didn't matter that he was the first person to talk to me who wasn't a star.

None of it was important! He was just one man out of trillions! _He's never going to be remembered, in a while he'll be dead and forgotten, and it's time to go anyway. I have to leave here, it's making me think strangely._

I backed up down the mountain's path a little bit.

I'd need a running start, it was harder to jump here than it was in the sky.

I took two steps, a third, a _jump_...

And I fell off of a cliff.

I couldn't believe it.

I couldn't get to the stars.

_How?_

I didn't understand. I'd always been able to get to the stars when I wanted to.

Even falling down, down, down, I could hear them singing.

_no, child, our favorite child, no, don't fall..._

Falling was bad, I decided. I didn't like it.

I stuck my hand out to the edge of the cliff, trying to slow down, but pulled it back immediately.

That _hurt_! My hand _hurt_! The cliff had _hurt_ me!

I had to stop falling. The stars told me to stop falling, and the stars always took care of me.

I put ice over my hand, accidentally freezing a section of the cliff. That was when I thought of it.

I needed to stop falling, and I wasn't falling if I was _sliding_!

Quite pleased with that logic, I iced over the cliff as I fell, until it became a slide. It was fun! I could do loops and turns and-

Owwww, a tree! Why did there have to be a tree there, again?

But I'd stopped falling! I looked up to the sky, proud of my accomplishment.

_good child, clever child. have fun instead of falling._

Okay! I had to try that again, it was so fun! I clambered carefully to the top of my tree-not as high as the cliff, but it would work. I planned it out this time, making the slide before sliding down, but it tilted the tree over! It almost broke, and I fell off!

Well, this was why I didn't plan things. I clambered to the top of the cliff and used that slide again, and I didn't fall this time. It was amazing!

After a while, though, I remembered why I was sliding. _I couldn't get to the stars._

I raced up the cliff, and I tried to jump off again.

I fell.

I slid.

I climbed.

I fell. Slid. Climbed. Fell, slid. Climbed, fell, slid, climbed, fell...

It was no good.

I crumpled in a ball on the ground next to the cliff face.

I couldn't go home.

This had never happened before. I didn't think I liked planets much anymore.

Why couldn't I go back to my friends the stars? Were they angry at me for staying and talking to the man? I didn't mean to, he just followed me! It wasn't my fault! Would they not love me because of him?

_Why won't you let me come home?!_

_child child don't fear child nonono safe happy never angry child stay_

_But why? Why can't I go back home and run and play and skip from path to path?_

There was a pause, and I registered white noise from the stars as they tried to explain to me.

_planet, the planet has child, won't let go child rest don't fall child shhhh..._

I didn't understand. I didn't get the concept of gravity, it had never applied to me before. The stars had never pulled me to them and stopped me from leaving like this planet had. I didn't like it.

I felt a tear drop from my eye, already frozen solid. The rock and grass around me began freezing.

I cried for a long time. I ran out of tears long before I finally stopped sobbing.

I had to get up. The stars were singing lullabies to me, and I had to move on. If the planet didn't want to let me go, I'd have to find a way to _make_ it.

I spent a long, long while trying to free myself. I didn't know how long it was, but it was a lot of time.

I tried _everything_. I talked to the planet, I tried to shoot myself into the sky a dozen different ways, I did all I could think of and more.

Sometimes I would come across tiny, lost men. They were small and round, like little children. Maybe they were a different type of man? Maybe they _were_ children! Oh, that would be fun.

But they were always unhappy. They cried warm, _wet_ tears like water. They came too close to Fear for my tastes, so I tried to show them that I was going to escape the planet's clutches, and they could, too!

They loved slides and catapults and running, and when they tired I would carefully take them to the walls that surrounded the twinkling lights at night. I loved these tiny men! They were so sad when I found them, always yelling and screaming, and sometimes they were scared of me at first, but they were so _happy_ when I showed them my inventions and games, it was worth the strange, warm salt-tears.

Their tears tasted like salt, though. It was weird. I wasn't sure if it was like blood or not, because sometimes when they fell they would leak red and it tasted just like their tears. I didn't like when they were sad, so I stopped them from falling when I could.

And I never let Fearlings touch them. Never ever.

After a while, the man I'd first met came into the woods I liked to live in. I wasn't sure what to do, what was he doing here?!

I hid, I ran and hid all my creations from view. He looked around for an hour and left. I didn't know what he was looking for.

I was relieved that he hadn't seen me. I had remembered him, but I wasn't sure what to do around him.

After that, I made sure I could disappear into the forest at a moment's notice. I let my ice creations nearest to the lights melt away, and I made coverings for the others out of leaves. I didn't want to confront him.

Just as well that I did, because he tried again soon afterwards. The world had only gone dark ten times since the last time he'd come, but I had prepared for it this time.

I followed him around, making sure he never saw me. I didn't think he could hear my star-speak, but I kept quiet just in case. I knew he could hear my normal speech.

After a while, I developed a routine. I would play and try to escape the planet when the world was dark and I could see the stars, could hear them all over the huge, uncomfortably close star that peered at me when it was light out. During the light-sky, I would sleep or explore.

The routine did, of course have the two exceptions.

Whenever I found a little man, I would stop everything and play with it. Little men were curiosities to be observed.

When I heard the man who had skated with me come through the forest-and who wouldn't, he was so loud-I would hide and leave any little men I had found in a clearing for him to take back with him.

He hadn't hurt me, so I was pretty sure he wouldn't hurt them. Also, whenever he found a little man in the forest, he would take it and leave immediately. The sooner he left, the better, in my book. He was weird.

One day, I found a little man who refused to leave me when I tried to return it to the little silent-star-lights. It held on to me and made salty-tears appear and made a face that made me do what it wanted. I took it around with me for a time, and it _grew_! Sure, it wasn't much, but it grew at least half a finger-width! I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't kneeled down and wrapped my arms around it so much. It seemed to like that, and being spun, and when I carried it. It was very picky about being carried with its head up, though. I didn't know why, I couldn't remember being that fussy, but as long as I fed it and let it sleep and cleaned up after it it wasn't picky, so I respected its wishes.

Eventually the man came back. He was still looking for something, but he was coming less and less often. I wondered what he'd lost.

I put the little man in front of his path and ran away, observing from a good hiding spot in a tree. He made a worried sound and picked it up, and it made little salt-tears appear again. I didn't know what to do with salt-tears! I almost went into the clearing to make it stop the wailings, but the man knew what to do. He held the little man close, and he made hushing sounds at it. In no time, it was sleeping! I had had so much trouble getting it to sleep most of the time, and this man just walks right up and does it!

_Then again,_ I decided, _maybe these are the same type of man._

It certainly made sense. Maybe the man was just a really _big_ little man! He kept walking in the forest like they did, and he could communicate with them, and he could make them stop leaking salt-tears!

Yes, they were the same, I decided. But all the same, I wanted to make sure the little man was safe with the big-little man. I had gotten attached to it.

I followed them.

Before long, I saw them approach a clearing, and then a structure! It was like a cave without a cliff! The big-little man led the little man into it, and they remained inside for a long time. Then, lo and behold, _more_ big men came! But these men could not be big-little men, because they didn't come into my forest. They took the little man with them, but it waved its hands at me before it left, even though I was hidden and it shouldn't be able to see me.

What an odd creature.

I decided to go to the big-little man's cave and investigate. I waited all the dark-sky time, and as the too-close star was rising and singing of light, I walked out of the forest and towards the cave. I poked it.

It seemed solid.

I poked harder.

Still solid.

I tried hitting it.

Ow! That hurt! But it was _still there_. What _was_ this odd contraption?

There was a noise inside it, and I froze. What to do? I could run, but then I might not come back again! I couldn't hide, this was a clearing! What to-

The cave _opened_.

The big-little man looked ruffled and odd, not wearing the black and gold I had come to expect. Instead, he was wearing white, with a deflated, pointed cap on his head.

Such an odd big-little man.

He made noises when he saw me, and I wasn't really sure what he meant by them, but some of them were familiar. They sounded like the noises little men made. He wasn't going to make salt-tears and faces I couldn't deny, was he?

He didn't, he merely stared and made noises. They stopped being recognizable noises and turned into "a-a-aa" noises, but his face made it worth the lack of comprehension. His big eyes and faltering hands made him look so _surprised_! I wondered idly if I had accidentally broken him.

He stepped back and closed his cave.

He opened it again.

He repeated the process a couple of times.

Finally, he walked forward and touched my shoulder. I wondered if that was a greeting of some sort, and I was pretty sure it was when he fell down, sleeping.

I caught him-falling was bad, so catching was the proper response to this greeting, right?

I guessed so.

He still didn't wake up, and I couldn't just stand here all day holding him up.

Eventually I went cautiously into his cave. Inside it was very well-lit, and had stuff all over. However, none of it seemed like a place to put sleeping big-little men.

This was a dilemma.

I remembered some birds then, and how they went about gathering soft things for their nest. Maybe that was what I was supposed to do?

It was a wonder men had gotten anywhere, with such time-consuming and backwards greetings. They'd be spending all their time making nests!

Nonetheless, I was brought up to be polite. Well, not really, but when I had a planet I was pretty sure I was supposed to be polite. So I took the square things with even smaller people in them from the walls for a base, but then I accidentally dropped one and it broke, so I decided not to use those. Instead, I used these rectangular things that opened on one end. They were covered in squiggly lines, and sometimes had more unmoving men in them. They didn't break, even though I dropped one to see if it would, so I decided that it was safe. I made a base with those to make sure he didn't fall out, and then grabbed everything soft I could find. There was a lot of clothing around, so I used nearly all of it, except for the stuff that was tough and not soft at all.

Finally, I was satisfied with the nest I'd made. I looked at him, quite satisfied, but he was still where I'd left him on the floor.

That didn't look very comfortable...

Oh! I'd forgotten to put him in the nest! Right. I picked him up and carried him to it, gently setting him inside. Confident that I'd gotten it right, I decided to leave before he got me caught up in more weird traditions.

Hours later, Kozmotis Pitchner woke up in a pile of towels, clothing, books, and pillows that was softer and more comfortable than his bed on a good day. He groaned and went back to sleep-he'd deal with it later, for now it was too comfortable to leave.

* * *

**So Jack doesn't know what gravity is. Also, he adopts children who get lost in the woods. And apparently tastes their tears...and blood...greeeat job, Jack, not creepy _there_ at all...**

**Jack, that is not how you parent! You are terrible at children!**

**Those of you who read my other story know Koz is looking for Jack, but giving up and deciding he was a dream until the last scene.**

**Aaand Jack made Kozzy a bed out of fluffies because he though he was a robin. Yep.**

**PLEASEPLEASEPLEASSE give me prompts to write on! I need scenes or ideas to write!**

**Thanks for reading, please review!**


	4. Linguistics are a Problem

Not long after the "Nest-and-Cave Incident", probably not even two dark-sky times, the big-little man came back into my forest.

_Not_ my forest. My home was in the _sky_. "The" forest.

But he was in there regardless of whether it was my space or not, and I wasn't quite sure what to do. We had gotten along quite well with the completion of the sleeping-greeting, even if he'd been unconscious, but I probably wasn't what he was looking for when he came to the forest. Even now, he was casting his eyes about and calling out quietly for something.

If he kept doing that, he was going to attract Fearlings, no matter how quiet he was.

That was what made up my mind. I didn't want Fearlings all over my forest, so I decided to help him find what he was looking for so he could get out before they came. I jumped out of my tree, landing softly on the mossy ground.

If I was _really_ careful, maybe I could surprise him! I could already tell he was going to be fun when he was startled.

I crept stealthily back, away from him. There was a clearing only twenty-three trees from him, if one was to go straight from tree to tree. It was farther than it seemed, but I still needed to hurry. I made a path of ice, so I could skate there quickly without him seeing me. I was getting better and better at getting from one place to another without leaping to the stars! I barely had to leave the ground at all, if I didn't want to.

I normally swung from tree to tree, though. It felt more like home.

I quickly reached a place about three straight trees from the clearing. I was hidden, but not _too_ far. I created a tiny path out of ice, off the ground just a little, with a jump at the end, estimate his height...

Ha! There he was, coming to the clearing at the perfect angle! I skated as fast as I could up the path, soaring into the air. For a brief moment it felt a little bit like falling and a little bit like leaping through star-paths, and then I hit him dead-on, going headfirst into his chest.

Instinctively he brought his arms up, and we tumbled across the ground for a moment before we both landed side-by-side on the grass. In no time I popped up, wanting to greet him properly but not wanting to sleep just yet. I ignored the metal sword in my face for the time being-aside from readying myself to make some ice fast. Ice was all I needed to attack or defend.

"Hi!" I chirped. "Did I scare you? I bet I did! I saw you looking for something again, what was it? I don't think you're gonna find it, if you haven't yet. Maybe I know where it is!"

He looked startled when he registered it was me, and quickly put the sword away. Hah! I thought so. Sleeping on people must be a greeting to show trust! He'd fallen asleep on me to show that we weren't enemies, and I'd reciprocated by making a nest for him. I was so proud of myself, I'd gotten his culture right so_ quickly!_

"So? What's up? Where did the little man go? Why do you live in a weird cave instead of a tree? Trees are comfortable, you know. Maybe you _don't_ know! I'll show you next time you greet me, and then maybe you can learn to live in trees! That would be better than living somewhere you can't see the stars even a little. It still wouldn't be proper...but it would be good, I promise!"

He shook his head from side to side, before making a wheezing sound that seemed like he was a little too shocked to laugh. Maybe I'd startled him more than I thought.

The sound turned into chuckles, which turned into outright guffaws, and I wondered if some stardust had rubbed off on him. In no time he was lying on his back just _laughing_.

"Um, you are _kind of_ creepy still," I decided, crawling towards him.

I poked him in the cheek, but he just kept laughing.

I laughed, too. It was kind of funny, an Elemental and a man in a forest far away from anything, coexisting when we were supposed to hate each other.

Eventually he got up, bending at the waist to extend his hand to me. I wasn't really sure what to do with it. Maybe he wanted another sword? The one he had wasn't ice anymore, so it clearly wasn't as good.

I concentrated for a moment, and a sword appeared in his hand, pointing upwards so that it nearly hit his face. He gave the funniest little yelp as he jumped backwards. He looked at the sword like it had bitten him, and I jumped up clapping. He was so funny! Even if he was a little weird sometimes.

He looked a little uncertainly at me, and put the sword gently on the ground. Maybe he didn't want a sword, then. Maybe he was asking for the thing he was looking for?

"Sorry, I don't know what it is. If you could talk, maybe I would know...wait! Waitwaitwait! I know! I'm gonna teach you to talk!"

Clearly, this was the best way to handle the issue. We weren't getting anywhere too quickly battling the language barrier anyway. I looked around for something to point out to him.

There was a little brook at the edge of the clearing, some different mosses and ferns all over, a fallen log, and lots and lots of...

"Ha! Trees! We will start with the trees," I decided.

I grabbed his wrist and dragged him over to the nearest tree. I pointed at it, then dragged his hand to it. He looked on, bemused.

"Tree. Tah-rah-_eee_." I enunciated carefully. I gestured at the whole tree, bottom to top. "_Tree_."

His eyes lit up. He said something in his own language. It sounded like a brook, moving and babbling along. There were far too many vowels.

"Tarey...Tray...? Treh-yii. Tareyi!" He exclaimed. I let go of his wrist and did a little victory dance. His first word, I was so proud! Next up, bark!

Careful not to frost it over and kill it, I broke off some of the bark from the tree.

"Bark. B-ark. Bahark." I handed it to him. "You try!"

"Aanak." He handed it back to me. Not what I had been going for, but it would be just as good for me to learn the little men's language. Maybe I could talk to the little men I found!

"Ah-nank." No. Not right.

"A_aa_ na hkt." That still didn't sound right. I glared at it, determined. I would get this right!

"Aaankh. Bark. Aaa-nka. Aaaaa-naaaaa-kh. Aaaanakh! Anakh!" I was getting it! I looked at him, proud. "Anakh!" I said, grinning.

"Aanak!" He agreed happily. He pointed to the sky. "Uabiare!"

"Sky!" I responded. "OOhabiytharrEH. Oo-abi-ya-reh! Ooyabiyareh! Sky!"

"Soo-kae!" I did a little dance of victory. We'd done it! We had two whole words!

He ran to the sword, set aside in the grass.

"Shpaataki. Shoo-paaaa-ta_ki_." He gave it to me.

"Shpahtakni! I got it, it's Shpahtakni! I can say things!" Oh, this was exciting. We kept at this game for a while, running around like madmen pointing at things. I could hardly keep it straight, there were so many _words_! But eventually the too-close star was hushed by its brethren, and it grew dark outside. I walked with him to his cave, since he looked too big to travel by the trees. Once we got to his clearing, he told me one last word.

He pointed straight at his own chest.

"Kozmotis. Kozmotis Pitchner. _Kozmotis_."

"Kaus-motesh. Kauz...motes. Kauzmot-_ish_." I wanted desperately to get this right. It seemed important to him, and I wanted his face to light up one last time before he left. I concentrated very hard, "Kauzmotis!"

"Yes! Yes. Kozmotis." He told me, and we wore matching grins. He pointed at himself again, and told me, "Me...Kozmotis." He nodded, then pointed at me.

Maybe he was a Kozmotis, and that's what big-little men were supposed to be called! Big-little men was an awfully strange name for a species. Then maybe the little-little men were just Motises?

I was an Elemental. "Elemental," I told him.

_Anesh_ was the word for 'me,' wasn't it?

I looked at him and slowly pronounced: "Anesh Elemental. Ice Elemental. Anesh Elemental."

"Elemenetal? Eleme_nt_alll." He sounded out the word as carefully as he could, a look of deep concentration crossing his face. "Elementall!"

"Yes, Elemental! That's me, I'm an Elemental!" I exclaimed.

We grinned at each other for a moment, then he said, "Uelong," and went back to his cave.

"Oo-ay-long" I repeated quietly to myself.

I went back to my forest, murmuring little snatches of words to myself. Some of them sounded familiar, like some of the little men had said them before, while some of them sounded utterly strange. There were so many vowels! I didn't know how they understood such a liquid-sounding language. The Elemental language was nice and sharp, clear as anything. Men were strange creatures, though, so I supposed their language could be as odd as it wanted. Maybe a little weirder than it wanted, the men seemed a little helpless where it came to common sense.

How had these people ever beaten the Elementals? They were so _harmless_.

I walked through the hidden paths of the forest, wanting to see what the men did when they walked through my space. It didn't look like it did from the treetops.

It was odd, and the trees felt safer. I clambered up the nearest tree just in case-Fearlings never found me in the trees.

I wondered if the Kozmotis had a cave just like my trees, so the Fearlings wouldn't find him.

It made sense, I decided.

But I still wanted to show him how nice trees could be...

Aha! If I made a cave in the trees, maybe he'd see that trees were good and learn to sleep outdoors properly. It couldn't be good for him, to be cooped up in a cave all the time. He was probably looking for a better cave when he went out in the forest, too! I'd give him a good cave, I decided. A good cave in the _trees_, where it should be.

Thus decided, I set down to work. A platform would have to be the start, something firm to stand on...I knew just the place! My very favorite tree, right at the edge of the cliff! It had such a nice _view,_ I was sure he'd like it!

The tree had no low branches, then suddenly burst out into a bunch of them halfway up. It was a perfect base for a platform, and the branches were thicker than I was, so they wouldn't break under the ice.

There _may_ have been other trees around it before I'd accidentally frozen them. It had taken a while to realize that if I froze trees too fast, they exploded. I wasn't quite sure _why_ they would do something like that, as it seemed quite damaging to them, but then again trees could be rather silly at times.

At last, I swung up to the tree at the top of the cliff, and as always, I was astounded by the view. Rocky cliff fell sharply hardly three paces in front of me, and past that the forest spread, green and shadowed and perfect. I could see little pockets of darkness where there were ponds or clearings, and at the edge of the world I could see the big walls around all the pockets of light.

Behind me was the way down the cliff, but I knew there was a lot of sand somewhere to my left where I'd first landed on this planet, and the Kozmotis's cave was next to another big set of walls surrounding another collection of not-star lights.

For now, though, I had a job to do. I ignored the murmurs of the stars as they sang of beauty and play, and instead made a web out of frost as best I could between the branches of my tree.

I had seen creatures, peculiar eight-legged creatures taller than I was, make webs like this in the farthest, deepest reaches of my forest that I'd explored thus far. They were really nice and chattered at me sometimes! And they gave me food when they caught some, so I threw icicles at passing animals to help them catch things. If they could make webs, I could, too!

In no time, I had a basic web made. It was by no means pretty, but it wouldn't need to be-I'd add aesthetic value later. Now it just needed to support more ice, so I could make a floor.

Carefully, _ever_-so-carefully, I filled out a tiny corner of the web with ice. This ice had to be able to hold _anything_, especially a nest, and if I messed up I'd have to wait for it to melt before trying again.

Slowly, but with growing speed, I filled in the web until it was solid ice, less solid in the center so that the tree could grow, and it looked like it grew out of the tree. A platform of ice, right there and smooth as glass! I laughed and danced across it. I'd done it, I'd gotten a start-

Whoops! I slid just a little on the platform, nearly falling off. I only barely grabbed the edge in time, and then I was stuck for a little bit. The ice was too slippery to hold on to, and I felt my hand slipping. I looked down...oops. I guessed I'd made the platform a _little_ bit too wide, because now I was hanging over the cliff edge. I remembered the stars' warning, _don't fall_, and held on tight. But holding on tighter only made my hand slip! How was I supposed to not fall if not falling made me slip and fall?

I was scared.

I tried to make a slide-that had worked before, right? But the ice just fell with no cliff or trees to cling to, and I couldn't make a slide stay long enough to use.

Feeling the growing seeds of Fear, I looked to the stars for help.

_I'm stuck! I'm trying not to fall, but I keep slipping!_

_wait, child. wait and hold on. wait, our favorite child, we will help our child. wait._

I could hear their songs change, searching for something, and finding it. Somewhere a million trees away, I felt their relief as they _believed_ strongly enough to encourage a possibility into being. I held on tight, hoping, adding my voice to theirs. For a long time I was concentrating on hope and desperately not thinking about my growing Fear, but then my hand clenched too tightly around the ice and slipped. Gah! I needed handholds for this.

I carefully waved my hand in front of the ice...

And nearly got impaled by the spike of ice that came out.

"Aah! Bad Element! Stop trying to kill me, I kind of need to get down now!" I'd _known_ that my Element got out of hand when I was too emotional. I'd _known_ that. That was the very first thing an Elemental child _learned_, but I'd _still_ tried to use it. Fear made people _stupid_.

"Elemental!" A voice called. Hey. I knew that voice. That was the Kozmotis' voice. What was he doing here?

He babbled alarmedly at me.

"Yes, yes, I _know_ I'm stuck. it's kind of a problem, but I can't get down because I'm...I'm..."

_I know Fear_.

"I don't want to become a Fearling," I told him. "I want to see the stars and not die and _I don't wanna be a monster!_ Please!" I could hear that I was begging. I shouldn't beg, I knew. Long-forgotten lessons on ettiquite and proper behavior for princes resounded in my mind. _Center_, they advised. _Find your center and _use_ it. Royalty, especially princes, must always be calm and hopeful. Put on a smile and keep walking. Keep going. Keep holding on. Keep..._

The thought was interrupted when I heard renewed babble coming from the Kozmotis. He was looking off to his right, where the deeper forest was, but my platform was in the way and I couldn't see what he was chattering at.

He brandished his sword at it. I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped desperately that it wasn't Fearlings, come to make me into one of their own. I didn't want to get corrupted, I didn't want to be that, I didn't want the Elementals to die out!

A new determination swept over me at the thought of my people. I wouldn't _allow_ the Elementals to die out. I opened my eyes again, bolstering my courage. I would get through this, I wasn't going to die on a stupid _cliff_ in the middle of nowhere! Not allowed! I swung my loose hand up to re-grip the edge of the platform. I strained to bring myself upwards without compromising my grip, hearing sounds of a struggle behind my tree. The Kozmotis was practically helpless with a sword! I had to get to him before he hurt himself!

I took a risk and threw myself upwards to safety with a yell, and my hands slipped. For a tiny moment I soared...

then

I

_fell_.

* * *

**I swear, this chapter was all fluff and happiness until Jack decided to be stupid and fall off a cliff. I didn't even plan that.**

**Fun fact: Ice Elementals usually sleep in spires of ice with open tops. Most Elementals sleep as close to the sky as they can get while still surrounded by their Element.**

**Please, I beg of you, _prompts_! I need to know what to write!**


	5. Near-Death Experiences are Scary

_I took a risk and threw myself upwards to safety with a yell, and my hands slipped. For a tiny moment I soared..._

_then _

_I _

fell.

And then, in short order, I stopped falling. I looked up, bewildered, and saw immediately that two things had happened.

First, a spike of ice like a really _long_ icicle had spiked down from the platform, even further down than the cliff edge, and I now had a death grip on it. It was thin enough that I could wrap one of my hands around about half of it, and I had my hands and arms clenched tightly around it. It ended just beneath my ribcage, leaving my legs dangling, and it was cracking ominously.

Second, there was something on the back of my coat. It was tugging me upwards, which was good, but I couldn't _see_ it, which was bad. I glanced up, past my hands, past my icicle, past the cliff, and saw what I could confidently say I had least expected to see.

One of my peculiar, black-and-yellow, eight-legged friends was pulling her own silk upwards. Silk that was _attached to me_.

Wait, when did this happen? What just happened? _How_?

_child calls for help, we call for help. help comes. friends of our child come. safe. safe and good, child._

Well, thanks, stars, that cleared up absolutely nothing.

Or perhaps everything. I _had_ called the stars for help, and they'd provided it-they'd called for anyone who knew of me and cared for me, people who could help, and influenced them to come. I had seen it happen before, because some stars were wishing stars and people often wished for help. Someone would suddenly feel the most powerful urge to go to someone, and help would come. I never thought it would happen to me, though. And my strange planet-creatures had come to help me! Even as I thought this, the Kozmotis I'd adopted (had I adopted him? It felt like it, half the time) came to the cliff-edge and pointed his sword at the leggy lady helping me. He was babbling very threateningly.

"Kozmotis!" I called. "That is no way to treat a lady!"

He looked startled, and looked over the cliff down at me. He nearly dropped his sword when he saw me!

I laughed, feeling the last tiny traces of Fear leave me. He'd been trying to fight my friend, not Fearlings! I just hadn't seen that there were no enemies because of the tree in my way. And now he looked so alarmed, his eyes all wide and looking between me and the...spider! Right, they were called spiders back at home! Though our spiders were considerably smaller, and they whispered secrets of the universe in your ear when you slept. I thought they'd looked familiar.

"Hi spider! I remembered what you're called, aren't you glad? Now I can call you spider!" I told her happily. She chirruped at me, and I laughed again. The Kozmotis sighed at the both of us, then babbled at me in mostly unintelligible words. I heard '_you_' and '_me_,' though, and he sounded upset, so I was pretty sure I was being scolded.

"Loosen up, Koz! It's fun, it's like a slide! Except upwards. An up-slide!" I shouted, finally close enough to the cliff that I could scramble up to join my friends. As I go to the top of the cliff, the spider chittered at me. She spoke the same language as the spiders at home, I remembered. How had I ever forgotten that language? I used to speak it all the time!

My spider-speak was a little rusty, but I did my best to chitter back, telling her all about the web and the cave and how the Kozmotis had to learn to live outside of caves like everyone should but I fell off the cave I was making in the trees and she saved me!

She laughed, in the dry, chattering way that spiders do, and told me to stay with the Kozmotis for just a little while. She said if one of her babies had been in that kind of danger, she'd want to be around it for a while, and the Kozmotis would want to make sure that I wasn't going to endanger myself further.

I almost argued that I wasn't in danger, but then I remembered the Fear and I wasn't so sure.

She looked at me knowingly and left the two of us to our own devices.

Immediately after the spider left, the Kozmotis drew me close to him and wrapped his arms around me. I squirmed for a moment, feeling a little trapped, but eventually relaxed and allowed it.

He murmured quiet, upset things at me and squeezed tighter, so I squeezed back. It was surprisingly comforting, reminding me of ages ago when my mother would hold me close while our guards fought the Fearlings. I burrowed into his chest.

"I was s-scared. I was scared. I'm n-not supposed to know Fear, I don't w-want the Elementals to die," I told him, not caring that he couldn't understand. I didn't know what was wrong with my voice, it was hitching and my breath was too noisy and it almost sounded like I was crying.

"I don't wanna die," I whispered, and I _didn't_ start crying. I was on a planet far away from home, and my whole species was dead, and the only people I could talk to were spiders that looked all wrong and little men who killed Elementals so long ago. I had known Fear and nearly died. But I _didn't_ cry. There was something in my eyes, or something like that, because I wouldn't cling to a _man_, no matter what species of man, and sob like a child.

The Kozmotis seemed to know what to do, though, and made soothing noises at me even as he scolded me. I had to have been freezing him, but he just hushed me and crooned soft little songs at me until I fell asleep.

* * *

Kozmotis Pitchner wasn't sure how he'd ended up with a child under his protection, but he suspected he'd had little choice in the matter since the moment he'd defied orders and tried to make peace with Schakel. Schakel was such an odd name, too, but he supposed it was a different culture, so it might be normal for...whatever Schakel was. The point was that he'd somehow adopted an alien child who could kill an entire guard force with no apparent strain, so he had better learn quickly how to communicate with him before someone else found him. He shuddered to think of what would happen if Schakel was somehow captured by...no, he wouldn't let that happen. Thus determined, he lit a lamp.

He had a desk and lamp in his study, along with books and maps and papers _everywhere_. This house had been in his family as far as history could track it, and despite his generally cleanly ways, he'd never been able to get the papers to sort into neat files. He was currently using a new piece of parchment to make notes on the new words he was learning.

Schakel's language was harsh and musical, all _sh_ and _kh_ sounds and_ j_'s and low, growling _r_'s. It sounded like two stones grinding together mixed with poetry, if such a thing were possible. If he were to be particularly poetic, it sounded like ice crackling and moving, harsh and wild and beautiful, but above all belonging to nature. Just like Schakel seemed completely at home moving amongst the winding paths of the woods, and looked at his house like it was an abomination.

He set his quill to his parchment-he'd never really liked pens much, they were too light and they had no ink flow whatsoever.

_Journal entry XIV_

_I've finally succeeded in tracking down the child in the woods. I must stress again that he appears peaceful when not provoked, and I suspect he has something to do with the suddenly increased survival rate of children lost in the forest. He has begun teaching me his language and I've taught him some of mine, included below. His name is Schakel._

_To whoever may need a translation:_

_Khern: tree_

_Schakh: bark_

_Ainf: me, I_

_Khajat: you_

_Jhern: yes_

_Jeshei: no, wrong_

_..._

Kozmotis spent almost two hours trying to remember and take down every word he possibly could-after all, if someone else found Schakel some day, they might not try to hurt him if tey could communicate, if they could _see_ that he wasn't some savage beast that had to be killed. He knew it was naive, but he couldn't exactly put a sign on Schakel saying 'please don't hurt me, I'm just a lost alien!'

To be honest, he didn't even know if Schakel was lost. He could be a scout.

But Kozmotis didn't think so. He was so young, and looked so confused sometimes, and he was trying to teach Kozmotis to talk to him when the logical option for a scout would be to kill him to prevent his presence from being reported. Besides, he hadn't left yet, which made Kozmotis wonder if he even wanted to.

Maybe he couldn't. Maybe whatever spaceship he'd used was destroyed when he crashed, and the ice he'd landed in was something like an ejection seat.

Either way, Kozmotis had a respectable list Schakel's words and notes on his behavior down when he prepared to go to bed. He was just about to blow out the lamp in his study when he paused.

Something wasn't right.

Kozmotis couldn't identify it, but something definitely felt wrong.

Was that a sound? Was that a rustle, out in the woods?

Was that a growl? Was that shadow really a shadow?

He hastily grabbed his sword-thank goodness he hadn't gotten around to putting on pajamas yet-and ran outside.

Nothing. There wasn't a movement in the clearing.

It wasn't entirely unusual for Fearlings to attack his house or his person, but there had been significantly less attacks since Schakel had come. Whether out of benevolence or self-preservation, he had been killing the Fearlings that normally harried Kozmotis.

He scanned the clearing again, feeling restless. He wondered where Schakel was.

There! He could have sworn he'd seen a shadow moving further out in the woods.

Without pausing to think, he darted farther into the woods, out of the relative safety of the clearing.

Absently, he was aware that what he was doing was risky. It could be an ambush, it could be his imagination, there was no reason to go into the woods at night and plenty of reasons not to...

But for some reason he didn't care. An intense feeling of urgency spurred him onwards through the darkened woods, his feet guiding him and his eyes taking careful note of the path. Whatever happened tonight, he would always be able to retrace his path.

He could almost hear a soft cry for help in the back of his mind.

_I'm stuck...help! Help me!_

It was soft and staticky and he could almost swear it was his imagination, but _what if it wasn't? _What if someone needed his help? He pressed faster, leaping over fallen logs and dodging around brambles until he came out on the top of a cliff.

Above him was an icy structure, rough on the bottom in a pattern that spiderwebbed outwards from the tree, which stretched outwards to hang far past the edge of the cliff. Hanging off of that platform was Schakel, and he was almost impaled by ice as Kozmotis watched.

He was only hanging on with one hand. He was going to fall.

Kozmotis' mind blanked out for a moment in panic.

"Schakel!" He called desperately. "Stop making ice, you're going to fall! What are you _doing_ up there?! Never mind, just...hold on! Wait a second while I try to get you down!"

Schakel was far, far past the edge of the cliff-Kozmotis wouldn't be able to reach him without falling himself. There was no way up the tree to the top of the platform that he could see, and it might take too long. Schakel was already slipping, growling in that odd language of his. Kozmotis could recognize fear in his voice. For a precious second, Schakel took his eyes off of the ledge he was clinging to and met Kozmotis' own.

He pleaded with Kozmotis in that brief second, and Kozmotis could understand despite the language barrier.

After all, the same sentiment had been repeated from children to their elders for as long as there had been children to repeat it.

_I'm scared._

He met Schakel's eyes and did his best to make the same reassurances that had always been made. The reassurances that he desperately hoped wouldn't be lies this time around.

_I know. I know. But you're going to be alright, and you're not going to fall. You have to believe in me!_

But there was a sound behind Kozmotis, and Schakel was already focusing on the one hand still clinging to the platform. Kozmotis turned around and saw a spider.

Spiders were untrusting beasts, poisonous and likely to kill anyone with a weapon. Anyone without one they would probably play with, and that fate was worse than the quick, painless death a soldier would get.

Schakel had no weapon. He was essentially helpless, hanging from a shelf on a tree. He would stand no chance if the spider got past Kozmotis.

No one had ever won a battle against a spider before, but Kozmotis would have to be the first. He wouldn't allow a child to be tortured and toyed with.

The spider chittered at him as he drew his sword. He focused on it, trying to predict what it would do next.

It leapt at Kozmotis, trying to poison him with its pincers, but he blocked with his sword. He disengaged and slashed down at its head, but it darted back in time for him to miss. He continued his offensive, lunging in with a stab, but it knocked his sword from his hands, and then-

Up! It was jumping above him! It soared over him, then landed at the edge of the cliff as Schakel let out a yell.

He fell.

_No!_

_No_...

Kozmotis let out a disbelieving yell of grief as the spider shot its web downwar-wait, if the spider decided to catch Schakel, he wouldn't fall! Quietly, Kozmotis shifted and grabbed his sword from the grass where it had fallen. He approached the spider.

"If you let him fall, it's the last thing you'll ever do," He promised fervently.

There was some chatter from over the cliff, which should be impossible, because spiders' web was paralytic. The only way it wasn't was if the spider didn't want it to be...which was ridiculous. The idea that the spider trying to _help_ Schakel was utterly preposterous, not to mention completely impossible.

Kozmotis glanced down again. Schakel looked fairly happy, hanging down and being pulled up as he laughed and chattered at the spider. Perhaps he knew it...?

This was utterly ridiculous. Kozmotis was beginning to think _spiders_ were sentient-not only sentient, but able _make alliances_ and_ come to the aid _of other creatures. But yet...this spider _was_ behaving oddly. Spiders generally kept to their webs in the middle of the night, and were almost never seen in this part of the woods. And hadn't Kozmotis himself been compelled to come here by a force he couldn't understand?

Perhaps...perhaps it didn't matter. As long as Schakel was safe on top of the cliff, he'd leave it be. Spiders' sentience or lack thereof wasn't important.

He sighed. He had a feeling he was going to have to get used to crazy, with Schakel around. Speaking of whom...

"You almost gave me a heart attack! What did you think you were doing in that tree? You shouldn't take risks like that! Don't ever do that again, okay? You could have broken every bone in your body!"

He couldn't feel too angry-despite the fact that Schakel had been _reckless_ and _stupid_, all of Kozmotis' ranting was smothered by relief that the child had not actually managed to _kill_ himself. He was just fine, chatting away at the spider. The spider chittered back, confirming Kozmotis' suspicions of sentience-and wasn't that a wonder!-and left, crawling up the trees and through the expansive canopies like they were a giant wooden spiderweb of their own.

As soon as he was sure it was gone, Kozmotis swept the child into a hug. They both needed the reassurance, he suspected. Schakel struggled at first, but eventually slumped forward. He was shaking, and Kozmotis murmured soothing nothings at him.

"Shh-shh, you're alright, hush now, I've got you, you're not falling anywhere. Shhh, Schakel, it's alright, it's _alright_ now, hush-shh..."

Schakel brought his arms around Kozmotis' chest and _squeezed_, making tiny sobbing noises as he fought not to cry. Kozmotis rubbed his back soothingly, hoping desperately that this was what one did with children. It felt right, though, so he muttered comfortingly as Schakel cried freezing tears into his shoulder.

He supposed it was fitting that the atmosphere got colder when an icy child was upset. He ignored the temperature and continued his murmuring, eventually lapsing into lullabies he remembered from his childhood. He crooned and sang, sometimes with words and sometimes without, and Schakel eventually slumped against him, fast asleep.

* * *

**See? I can write happy fluff. That was a whole chapter with all fluff and no ridiculousness. Because we're all srs bsns here.**

**Also, I have a beta now! Give a round of applause to the lovely and benevolent Tomoyo-chan284!**

**And the other story I wrote in this 'verse is Children of a Lesser God, but I think I'm gonna rewrite it, because it kind of sucks.**


	6. In Which There is an Epic Betrayal

When I woke up, I was in the Kozmotis' cave. This was a problem because his cave was not only not in a tree, it completely obstructed one's view of the sky. Honestly! That's what this whole thing had been about in the first place. Someday I would have to teach him how to sleep, since he was clearly doing it wrong.

Hmm. I sat up, realizing that I was in a peculiar nest-it was covered in layers of cloth, some of which were above me and some of which were below me. Perhaps it followed the bird example, and it was meant to be like a bird sitting on its eggs to keep them safe? The Kozmotis probably had Kozmotis-things to do, and couldn't stay here and sit on me. Also, he looked kind of heavy to be sitting on me without squishing me uncomfortably. I was grateful he was too busy to bother with sitting on star-children. Besides, he left such nice pieces of cloth to do it instead!

Then again, I wasn't an egg. I didn't need to be protected. Maybe that was why he felt a cloth would be good-there were very few things that a well-placed cloth could not protect against. Preferably in the form of a towel.

However, I was not about to sit in a nest all day, cloth or no cloth. I took a moment to hope that I wasn't messing up the fall-asleep-on-people greeting and got up. I wanted to explore!

I took a moment to look back on the nest and felt instantly guilty. It looked so sad and empty without a person in it...

I was probably supposed to do something to it. I thought hard, looking around the little cavern I'd woken up in.

There were shelves with various things on them, many of them full of variously-sized bound rectangles of paper. They were all along the walls. There was a little shelf that barely reached up to my waist next to the nest with nothing at all on it, and two cushy-looking...things in front of a fire. They looked like thrones, but they were all fluffy. Fluffy thrones! Imagine!

Well. First thing's first, I iced the fire over. It obediently extinguished, melting my ice. Non-Elemental fire is dangerous, and I was hardly going to let it burn down the Kozmotis' cave if I could help it.

Next, I found that the squishy not-thrones in front of the fire were still perfect places to sit, despite their not being thrones. They were all cushy and had a nice platform for your feet, though the place to actually sit on was rather thin and more like sitting on a wall than a throne. Most importantly, though, some of the soft things could be removed! I carried them over to the nest I'd woken up in. If I tucked them under the fabric and pulled it up, it looked just like someone was still being protected in the nest. Perfect!

Satisfied, I walked through a hole conveniently placed in the wall. Why there was a perfectly rectangular hole in the wall, and most especially why there was still wall hanging off of it on one side, was beyond me. Maybe Kozmotises had something against making sense?

Either way, there it was, and it led me to a passageway. There were several more perfect rectangles that I passed along the way, all with knobs protruding from their edges. Maybe that meant that they were next to be knocked out of the wall?

Soon, I emerged into another cavern, this one with a large, plush version of the not-thrones, long enough to fit several people if they wanted to sit very close to one another. Some smaller cushy-thrones sat around it, so that they made a misshapen circle. They all looked very comfortable.

I felt a happy chill go through me. So many squishy things were in this cave! I ran forward and jumped onto one, to test the bounce. It was great! I bounced again.

And again.

And once more.

Oh! Oh! Idea!

I tried to bounce from one to the next, to see if I could make it.

I did! Granted, the landing was a tad bit shaky, but I made it.

I tried to jump all the way around the circle. I made one jump, then the next then the...

Oof. Ow. I didn't make the third.

But that could be a new game-don't touch the floor!

I played for a long time, trying to stay in the air as long as possible. Eventually, I managed to jump clear across the circle! I was so happy with this new game I even started snowing!

After some time, I heard a sound of alarm from outside the walls of the cave. Maybe the Kozmotis had come back from wherever he'd been? I ran through another hole in the wall until I was closer to where I thought I'd heard the sound. Where was the entrance to this cave?

My question was answered when the Kozmotis swung another bit of wall open. That couldn't be good for the structure of the cave.

Whatever, I'd just get him to live in the trees when his cave collapsed. I ran up to him and wrapped my arms around him in what I was coming to understand was a standard greeting for Kozmotises. I braced myself for his weight, but for some reason he wasn't falling asleep. Maybe you only have to do that once? That would be more convenient, certainly...

In any case, he only gave a startled laugh and returned the gesture before stepping back. Then a frown overtook his face and he pointed back outside the cave, through the hole he'd taken out of the wall.

"Sky white Elemental?" He asked in his strange, flowing accent.

It took me a bit to understand what he was trying to say. Sky...I looked up. There were a bunch of grey clouds collected directly above the Kozmotis' cave from my play, and clear skies everywhere else. If there were any other Elementals around, they would know that as the universal signal that someone was having fun, and they would come to play with me.

There was about a foot of snow on the ground, too! It was only about four trees wide, only really the length of the clearing, but within that radius was a winter wonderland. I darted past the Kozmotis, shaking off thoughts of other Elementals, and scooped some snow in my hands. I threw it in the air and jumped up with it, and it was just as pretty falling the second time as it was the first!

"Come on, Kozmotis!" I shouted, running back to him. "Come play in the snow!"

He scowled some more, but reluctantly consented to be dragged out to join me. I wasn't sure whether he really understood that I'd asked him to play with me-he wasn't acting like it. I let go so I could run ahead and start a snow sculpture.

He reached me as I was trying to roll a small ball through the snow, in order to make a larger circle so I coulld make a snow-Kozmotis. Then he put a hand on my shoulder and scooped up his own handful of snow.

"Aarne," he told me. Then he shook his head from side to side. "No."

I pouted. Who didn't like snow?

"Snow," I responded, "Yes."

He looked frustrated for half a moment, then his eyes lit up and he held up a finger like he had an idea.

He pointed to the abrupt edge of the snow, than to the greenery outside it, then to the piles and piles of snow around us. Then he pointed back to the summery expanse of forest.

"No snow," he pointed out, then indicated his tiny winter wonderland. "No snow."

"Well, yeah, there wouldn't be snow here if I wasn't here, but how else are people supposed to know I'm here? If there isn't some weird weather, no one would know that there's an Elemental here!" I protested. I'd used snow and unusual ice or cold fronts to indicate where I was even among the stars, so why did the Kozmotis look so unhappy with it?

"No snow...here. No snow, no snow. Yes snow, yes snow." He struggled through the sentences awkwardly, having to pause to remember 'here,' but I knew what he meant. I'd been taught how to recognize this kind of thing for a long time.

"You don't want me to change the weather so it's different from out there," I murmured softly.

The Kozmotis didn't want me to change the weather. He wanted me to not make snow and ice in the middle of summer.

The men had wanted that. The men who killed the Elementals and taught them how to Fear had first wanted them to stop making unseasonal weather, then they'd gone after temperature, then they'd wanted the Elementals to stop everything that made us unique.

Then, after they'd taken so much from us and we'd just let them, because we'd thought they were our allies and friends, they'd used love against us and the war began. I knew how to watch for people like that, even if they weren't wearing the guise of men.

Even if they were wearing the guise of Kozmotises.

Even if they were wearing the guise of friends.

I fled to the woods. Behind me, the Kozmotis made a sound of alarm as he realized that I had seen right through his manipulations. Pretending to care about me so that he could kill me, just like my parents and family and all of the Elementals...!

I ran and ran. At first he chased me, but I knew the forest and I had the advantage of desperation on my side. I got far enough ahead that I could clamber up a tree and took to the air, leaping from branch to branch until I was far, far away.

I ran to the beginnings I had made of a nest. It had been for the Kozmotis, so he could learn to live in the trees like he should. I wanted to destroy it.

I couldn't destroy ice, unfortunately. The best I could do would be to make sure it never, ever hurt me again.

Carefully, I jumped onto the floor I had made. I was still as smooth as could be, but I angled my landing so that I would hit the tree and stop moving. Carefully, I reached outwards with my ice. I encouraged walls to build themselves up, to stop anyone from falling off ever again. I called up the coldest, hardest ice I could create, straight from my core. These walls had to be able to withstand _anything_.

It took hours to encourage the ice to make itself into strong, thick walls, and even longer to teach it how to bloom outwards, like a flower. I wanted to be able to see the sky, so I made the walls to fold out, preventing anyone from climbing it but leaving it without a roof. I would be able to jump into the tree-cave from the branches above it, too.

There was no way to get to it from below. I made sure that no Kozmotises would ever be able to get into it.

Satisfied, I dug out some hand- and footholds so that I could get out of the tree-cave when I was inside it, and I crawled out. I still had some things to do today, after all.

When I snuck back to the Kozmotis' cave, he was inside of it. Or maybe he was in the forest away from it. All I knew was that I couldn't see him from the edge of the clearing, which was what really mattered.

I quietly approached the cave. I'd start with the hole leading to outside-he'd repaired it, but I still didn't trust it.

I reached once more into the well of coldness inside me and made some ice over the rectangle. Just a thin layer, barely even a frosting.

I laid out the foundations of frost all over the outside of the cave from there, making it thicker and thicker as I went. The air was getting colder and colder, but it wasn't the happy chill from earlier. This was a _angry_ cold, the kind that scared people into leaving when they were trying to get to the Elementals in the early years.

Soon, the first layer was done, and the Kozmotis' cave looked very white and fuzzy from the frost that was all over it. Only three layers or so to go!

I was just putting th finishing touches on the frosting, making it even and making it cold enough to support more ice on top of it, when I heard a commotion in the woods. There were men there! The Kozmotis had brought men to hunt me!

I darted behind the cave into the woods opposite the noise. There I climbed stealthily into a tree and waited.

The Kozmotis was alone, coming out of the woods and shouting for me. His voice was rough and worn-he'd probably been calling for a while.

"Schakel," he called. Then, one last time, "_Schakel_!"

I almost began to fall for it. He sounded like he very much wanted to see me, and he was so very worried...

No! This isn't a Kozmotis, this is a _man_! Men try to _kill_ Elementals! Stay away from him!

I stayed quiet, refusing to move an inch. The Kozmotis-man slumped, looking defeated. He murmured something I couldn't understand, an entreaty or a threat or _something_, and walked back into his cave, knocking the wall over and replacing it as he went.

He hadn't noticed the frost all over.

I snuck back out of my tree, dropping silently to the ground. Only two more layers, and then I could escape and hide until I found a way off of this planet.

I spent the next many-stars-up time working silently, efficiently, and with great precision. This didn't need to last forever like he cave did, but it did need to need to prove my point.

Finally, I was satisfied with my work. There was a lot of ice on his cave-it was completely frozen over! He'd have to really work at getting out when he left again, and he'd certainly know that I didn't intend to die without a fight!

I retreated back to the safety of the trees to watch and wait.

It took him a long time to get out of his cave in the morning. The one close star was far on its path through the sky by the time he managed to knock out his wall again, and even then, he needed help.

Some other men came along when the star was nearing the halfway point in the sky. They had swords and I didn't trust them-I was pretty sure they were there to kill me. They acted different from the Kozmotis, though. They were more...rough. I hadn't noticed it before, but the Kozmotis was always just a little gentle.

But it didn't matter if he acted gentle or not, he was a man just the same!

The other men helped him get out of his cave, and they spoke to each other for a while. The Kozmotis seemed to be explaining something-probably that I was here and I needed to be killed.

The men pushed roughly past him and into his cave. Weird. He brushed himself off, all wounded dignity, and looked around the edges of his clearing carefully.

I held my breath.

His eyes caught mine.

That one moment lasted forever, as we looked at each other, the hunter and the hunted. I didn't want to have to hurt him, and for an instant, it almost seemed like he didn't want to hurt me, either.

Then he turned around, completely ignoring my presence, and walked inside.

Either I had been saved by that gesture or condemned. The wait before he and the other men came out was one of the most tense moments I had ever had without Fearlings involved.

Finally, the other men came out of the cave with the Kozmotis following them. One of them split off of the group to look at the bottom of one of the trees near me-I had always liked that tree, because it had this unusual indent that looked like a footprint walking straight up the side of the tree.

The man saw it, too. He began looking up...

The Kozmotis interrupted him, grabbing his attention back with some quick babble and a hand gesturing, dismissing the tree and the entirety of the forest in a single gesture.

I was saved.

The Kozmotis had decided not to kill me.

Kozmotises weren't men, they were big-little men, and they weren't dangerous-I shouldn't have doubted him.

I was still going to frost his house over again for making me think he was a normal man, though.

* * *

**What did I tell you? All sorts of Epic Betrayal going around. This chapter goes out to Mystichawk, who requested it initially! I kind of...deviated from the request a little. Whoops, sorry.**

**WARNING FOR NEXT CHAPTER: There is a timeskip. Remember how this is supposed to be a oneshot series? Yeah, it still is. Sort of. We'll be jumping up to Seraphina's birth next time.**

**Also, I hit 500 views in one day! That's incredible! THANKS A BUNCH, guys!**

**Random Elemental Fact: Elementals have limited emotional manipulation skill. Jack previously called it 'stardust,' thinking that it was a side effect of spending all his time in the stars, but later on he remembers more about his culture and realizes that it's an Elemental thing.**


	7. Let's do the Time Warp Agaiiin!

**Massive timeskip here, Koz has a wife now and Seraphina's being born!**

* * *

I was more excited than I'd ever been in my life. I just couldn't believe it, Kozmotis was about to spawn another Kozmotis! He and his wife were going to the city, and when they came back they'd have a tiny half-Kozmotis with them! It was...incredible. Amazing. I was beside myself waiting for them to come back.

It would almost be like having a little sister of my own, a half-sister! I just knew I was going to love her.

Of course, while I was waiting, I was preparing a good first impression of the world for the little Kozmotis. She had to know that ice and snow were infinitely better than everything else!

I was carefully squeezing ice out of wood in what I called 'frost flowers,' some beautiful little creations that I'd invented while I was still on the Elemental planet. My mother had loved them, I was pretty sure, so it was important that they be given to the newest member of the family in the Elemental tradition. Every time an Elemental was born, we all made something beautiful from our own Element, and the child would choose one thing out of all the presents. That present would stay with the child at all times until his or her Element was discovered, and if his or her Element was the same as the Element that the present was made of, it was supposed to mean the he or she was lucky and powerful, with good intuition. I had chosen a stick with a rounded top from Wind, if I remembered correctly. I'd played with it constantly, and nearly been adopted by the Wind Elementals if I hadn't been royalty and therefore impossible to adopt. Sometimes that happened-if a child was particularly attached to his or her present, they could be adopted. Royalty was pretty much stuck with their birth family, though.

Kozmotis had made something, too. Well, he'd tried. He already adored his little girl despite the fact that she hadn't been born yet, so he'd worked hard at making a tiny cut gem that would refract light all over. His wife had refused to have her daughter anywhere near the thing, though, fearing that she'd swallow it-it was only about half as big as a thumbnail.

Instead, Kozmotis had done something highly illegal for his little girl and stolen a tiny bit of the golden metal they were using nowadays to make decorations on uniforms with. It had been discovered recently, and it was only by his rank of Captain that Kozmotis had managed to filch some of it unnoticed. It warded against Fearlings and provided light in the darkness. When someone ran their fingers along it, it glowed gently and soothed them.

Kozmotis had had it made into a locket with his gem embedded into it as part of the decoration, and he'd looked so happy with it that his wife hadn't had the heart to argue. He'd had a picture of the whole family put into it, myself included.

His wife had made something special, too. Normally a mother didn't give a gift to her own child, as life was considered enough of a gift, but these were extenuating circumstances-normally there was a whole community of Elementals to give gifts. She'd made a gift so that the child could be a little less deprived by Elemental standards.

What she had made was a beautiful clip to put into one's hair. It was a bit bigger than her palm. It had nothing to do with her whatsoever, not what she did nor what she loved nor what she created, but when I'd asked her she'd just told me that her hair was always in her face, so if her daughter took after her at all, she'd be the same.

The clip was large and golden, with intricate engravings and gemstones embedded into it. It was shaped like a leaf blowing in the wind, but stylized and a bit abstract, so that if you looked at it differently it could be the sky filled with gem-stars or currents of water flowing through the ocean. I was sure there had been no better gifts in history than Kozmotis' and his wife's; but I was making her the most beautiful bouquet I'd ever seen, with summer wildflowers woven into spring and fall, and decorated with wintery accents. It had to be perfect, because I desperately wanted her to like me. I hadn't had a young playmate since the last child Elemental was turned into a Fearling!

Finally, I was done. I stuck the last frost flower into the bouquet carefully, making sure that it provided balance and not confusion. This bouquet wouldn't wilt until we were all long dead, so I didn't want to make a stupid mistake and have to stare at it for the rest of my life.

Satisfied with my creation, I gently placed it on the mantle next to the other two gifts. It wasn't proper to leave gift-giving until the child came home, but there wasn't a crowd to show the gifting to, so it was probably better to wait until all of the 'community' could be there.

The community of three. Wow, we were _so_ impressive!

I heard a noise outside. It had been a whole two days, maybe they were finally coming home!

There was a tired laugh and the sound of a Kozmotis talking, though it was too faint to discern what he was saying. I leapt up and ran outside.

There they were, Kozmotis and his wife, walking home with a bundle in Kozmotis' arms. He appeared to be talking to it, but I didn't wait around to see-what Kozmotis was doing wasn't nearly as important as the child.

"Seraphina! Welcome to the world, Seraphina!" I called, racing forward to the little bundle. I gently stole the bundle from Kozmotis, careful to support its head. Kozmotis instinctively followed her with his arms, wanting to grab her back from me, and I smiled even wider, if that were possible. If he was already protective of her, he would be a great father. I peered down at Seraphina, the tiny Kozmotis.

She was _adorable_.

Her eyes were big and the brightest green I'd ever seen, and she had the slightest bit of wispy black hair on top of her head. She had a happy pink flush on her pale skin, and she smiled at me as I cradled her in my arms. The rest of the world stopped for a moment.

"Oh," I breathed, and I was hit by the feeling that I would never be able to give her back to her father, no thank you, this child is going to be mine now. Her mother coughed, and I reluctantly broke the connection with her. I gave little Seraphina back to her mother reluctantly, feeling the whole time like I wanted to take her back and shelter her from all the bad things in the world.

I should have expected that. Elementals have a very limited form of empathetic telepathy and some moderate emotional forms of mind control-something like hypnotism. I'd bonded with the child already-nothing harmful or even unusual, but it meant that I was going to be her brother whether I liked it or not.

Luckily, I liked it. I had a family again! Not like my deceased one, no, this one was full of Kozmotises and odd languages and cultures, but precious nonetheless.

"Time to go in?" Kozmotis' wife asked gently, understanding.

I nodded shakily, still recovering from the unexpected _love_ I'd felt.

We all paraded inside and gently gave her our gifts. I knew which one I wanted her to pick, and surprisingly, it wasn't mine.

Kozmotis was looking at his daughter with gentle golden eyes, and I knew already that she would be the center of his life. Part of me hated that more than anything-I used to be the only other person in this clearing in the woods in the middle of nowhere, and now I had to share with his wife _and_ his daughter?

But most of me was happy. My sister would be happy and loved no matter what, and Kozmotis could use a bit more light in his life. He could be very focused on his work as a soldier, and it would do him good to have a tiny Kozmotis demanding his attention constantly.

She looked at each of the gifts ponderously, and I almost wondered if she knew what was going on.

Then, without a second thought, she grabbed Kozmotis' locket and stuck it in her mouth.

We all laughed.

It was a good first day to be alive.

* * *

**Jack uses Kozmotis as a name and a species. He genuinely thinks that Kozmotis is the first in a new species named after him. As far as he is concerned, Seraphina and Kozmotis are the names of the two Kozmotises that he knows.**

**Elementals have a habit of shuffling around children, and usually a child will be raised by a whole community of Elementals, because there are very few Elemental children to go around. This is partially because of their culture and partially because of their long lifespans.**

**This chapter goes out to Nat the Anonymous Reviewer!**

**Nicki K:**

**Indeed, Jack did just invent the floor is lava XD I was wondering if anyone would catch that!**


	8. In Which Jack Does Not Appear Even Once

Wind was the last Elemental.

She'd been forced to hide among the men for a long time now, she wasn't sure how long, but she was sure by now that there were no other Elementals left-it had been chaos when she'd fled their refugee planet, and the others had a succumbed and turned Fearling. She'd had no choice but to blend in with humans, suppressing her powers and praying that humans truly had forgotten about the Elementals. She couldn't trust anyone. She couldn't even talk to the stars-she was terrified that once they recognized her as an Elemental the men would find out.

She tried to move as often as she could, just in case. It was too painful to think about setting up a home or even a family when she would never see another full-blooded Elemental again. It was just...beyond her, even to think about it. Not now, not ever. Besides, she'd outlive any human she got attached to by a long shot.

Well, that was what she thought. She was wrong on several counts, but if one considers how little information she had when she came to those conclusions, it's understandable that she would make a few mistakes.

But as she had been wandering around the galaxies, avoiding settling down, avoiding the stars, avoiding everything, and she had ended up in a city on a fairly small planet whose only real source of jobs were the market and the military. She wanted nothing to do with the military-too conspicuous-but she decided that she might be able to set up as a merchant for a while. It had been a while since she'd been a merchant.

She'd bought a tiny house with what money she had, and prepared to sell some trinkets she kept around just so she could set up as a merchant when she needed to. She hated having to adapt to human culture, having a house with a roof and everything, but needs must, and she didn't necessarily have to spend any time in her new home. It only had three rooms anyway, sparsely furnished and barely livable even by humans' appalling standards. She'd just have to keep busy, like she always did.

Wind was calling herself Beatrice here; it was a disappointingly common name that no one would notice. She'd have to come up with two more absolutely average names for her middle and last name, although chances were good she'd never need the middle one. She'd never really understood the need for one name, let alone three, but she supposed humans didn't have elements to distinguish them from one another, and so needed labels.

Either way, she really needed to get to work on that job. It wasn't like she lacked for money, what with all she'd managed to rack up over the years, but rich people got noticed, so she liked to act middle-class. Accordingly, she had to go out and interact, make a presence for herself and act normal.

Oh, how she hated acting normal.

Well, she'd have to do it later, but first she should go out on a walk. Just so she'd be in a good mood for meeting her neighbors. After all, how could one walk hurt?

Thus decided, and before she could come to her senses and realize that there were a million more productive things she could be doing than taking a walk, she put on some shoes and left the house, heading for the forest at the edge of the city.

On her way through the city, she passed by the market, scouting out various stores and stalls she might like to set up in as a merchant. Nothing too fancy, of course, but she'd want something that was open to the air and not _too_ ugly...

Wind passed by several market stalls, mostly filled with essentials such as fruits or vegetables, before coming across a little alleyway labeled 'Crookt Corner.' It was sheltered from the sun, which was unpleasant, but it had several shops in the buildings that made up the edges of the alleyway and all of them sold the miscellany that she'd be selling. There was an antique shop next to a jewelry shop and across from an abandoned storefront, and farther down the alleyway there were several junk stores and a pet shop. At the very end of the alleyway there was even a blacksmith, or maybe a silversmith. It looked like the perfect abandoned corner for her to set up in.

Wind-Beatrice now-walked into the antique shop. A bell jingled as she entered, and she was instantly surrounded by dust. She coughed hard, having to think fast in order not to simply blow it all away. By the time her eyes stopped watering-they always, _always_ watered when she suppressed her powers, and she had no idea _why_-the owner of the store had hobbled out from the back room.

He was old, for a human, nearly bald with bulging eyes and wrinkled skin. What hair he did have was long and a grayish white. He had a wooden leg, cut off below the knee-probably a soldier, then, who'd lost a leg in battle. This theory was supported by the officer's formal cap he wore, despite the fact that the rest of his clothes were fairly standard-fare civilian, though worn and patched in places.

"Was there anything I can help you with, missus?" He asked her. His voice creaked like an old floor. She wondered idly if he would collapse.

"Yes, actually. If you don't mind, where could I go to buy that store across from you? I'm new in town, and I want to get going selling my wares as soon as possible," she asked him politely. She was fairly certain that he wasn't the right person to ask, but he could probably send her in the right direction without too much difficulty.

The old man let out a croaking laugh, somehow making Wind feel about fifty years old, even though this man hadn't lived half as long as her. "You'll not have any trouble with that, missus. Kozmotis Pitchner owns that property. That boy...he's an odd one, you know. Lives all by himself right outside of town, he does. Doesn't even want to be a merchant! No, he inherited his house and his store and he became a soldier. Well, he'll see soon enough-the life of a merchant is the life he wants, mark my words. But in the meantime, he'll be happy to get rid of it. Here, he lives just outside the gates and down the third path you see to your left. Just ask him for it, he'll give you a fair price," the old man promised. Wind smiled gratefully. Now she could go on that walk and get something done while she was at it!

After saying her goodbyes to Elmer, which turned out to be the man's name, Wind headed out to the city's edge once more. As she went, she took careful note of any other locations, but if this Kozmotis guy really didn't want the store, she was pretty sure it was the best out there. After all, it was in an alley people already associated with trinkets, as well as being at the mouth of the alley, so people would see her shop first. No one would be suspicious of an alley being windier than the street outside, at happened all the time. Any fits of temper or happiness would be covered.

It didn't hurt that Elmer was nice and she'd have all sorts of excuses to go out of the city if she was buying the store from someone who lived outside of the walls.

If being the last of your species could be said to have advantages, Wind supposed that that was one of them-no one questioned her. If she wanted to buy this store mostly because she didn't hate it and she wanted to be able to leave the city, well, no one was there to tell her she couldn't. Depressing, yes, but occasionally useful.

Wind nodded to the soldiers guarding the gate and continued on her merry way, feeling happy and hopeful. Maybe she'd even like this planet.

* * *

Kozmotis Pitchner was on gate duty today. Normally considered a boring role, gatekeeping was actually one of Kozmotis' favorite things to do as a soldier-he got to meet all sorts of interesting people as they came and went, and it beat playing cards at the barracks. Everyone always cheated anyway.

Today was even better than most days, though. Today Schakel had woken him up bright and early with a bucketful of freezing water-Kozmotis still had no idea where _that_ had come from-and he hadn't even minded, for some reason. He'd even allowed the boy to con him into playing a game. They'd engaged in some odd form of tag, he was fairly certain, although he still wasn't entirely certain of what the rules were.

His partner was talking with a traveling merchant that was heading back to his home city when a woman came to the gate-possibly also a merchant, or maybe a tourist. She had short brown hair and a thin, tall build. She looked pale and kind of...wispy, he supposed, like she would just blow away at any time. But most striking were her eyes. They were a pale blue, but they were awake, somehow. They looked so...alive.

So like Schakel's.

They even looked fairly similar, could she maybe be...?

No, that was nonsense. Assuming someone was related to the strange winter-child he'd found in the forest just because she had unusual eyes was nonsense. Besides, Schakel's eyes were a yellowish brown, even if their hair was similarly-colored. Also, this woman didn't have that alien appearance that practically broadcasted 'I'm not from around here!' Why was he even thinking about her?

Kozmotis managed a nod as she passed through the gates, returning to his previous occupation of watching the woods for Fearlings or more travelers. By the time his replacement came, he'd forgotten all about the woman with Schakel's eyes.

* * *

**Wind is not an OC. If you have any questions or concerns about Wind and her role in the story, please don't hesitate to ask. I will happily answer questions about her role in the story, and I assure you that the story is first and foremost about Jack and Koz. She's there simply because Seraphina had to have an Elemental mother, because I like the character, and because Jack had to be shown that he wasn't the last survivor. She will be well-rounded to the best of my abilities, and she will cause as many problems as she fixes. I swear she will not walk in and make everyone suddenly shallow and pathetic. If you want to know how important she's going to be or what my plans are regarding her, please feel free to PM me and I will tell you whatever you want to know, but I won't put it here because spoilers.**

**Past that, I am back in business! Glad to see you all again, and I look forward to the writing I'll be doing this summer. Ciao and thanks for reading!**


	9. In Which Jack Does Appear More Than Once

Wind passed through the forest with no difficulty, allowing a slight breeze to follow her as she went. After all, there were no humans around, and she was happy. She'd ended up on a nice planet, she had at least one decent neighbor, and she might be able to acquire a market stall fairly easily, if Elmer had been correct about the owner of the stall. It seemed likely-after all, many young men in these times wanted the glory of being a soldier, and if one such man had a handsome inheritance, he might easily neglect it. She might even be able to convince him to give it to her half-price!

"Kozmotis Pitchner," she murmured to herself. "Third path to the left...that's this one, and down to the end. It should be around here somewhere..."

Sure enough, she rounded a bend and came abruptly upon a clearing. It was fairly close to the city walls, actually, and if someone had bothered to put a gate in the right place it would have been a much shorter walk. Wind was glad for the chance to go through the forest, especially on a beautiful late summer's day like today. The trees would be changing color soon, Wind knew, and fall was not far off.

The house she was facing was fairly big, not really a mansion but not a cottage either. As far as houses went, she supposed it was alright, not as good as a real sleeping perch but not terrible either. It had a small second floor with two balconies that she could see, and had accents in a lovely shade of chocolate brown. The house itself was made of plain, unpainted wood, though it had some sort of varnish on it. Wind didn't know what, having never bothered with the intricacies of houses or house paint, and never having stayed long enough in one place to do so before.

The windows were many and open, which earned the building points in Wind's books. She could feel the breezes flowing through them pleasantly.

However, she wasn't here to critique houses. With that in mind, she marched up to the door and knocked her fist against it-such an _odd_ way of announcing one's presence-three times.

She waited.

And waited.

She tried again.

_Knock knock knock!_

"Hello? Mister Pitchner?" She called, just in case. There was no answer and Wind realized in a rush of embarrassment that it was midday and the man would probably be at work, especially as a soldier. She laughed a little at her own forgetfulness and turned to leave, allowing the breeze to pick her up for a brief moment.

Suddenly, the clearing got cold.

A moment later, she had a face full of snow.

For half a moment, Wind almost thought there were some kids around causing mischief, but that just wasn't possible.

It wasn't possible...because someone had just thrown a snowball at her during the _summer_.

There was only one circumstance that would make snowballs happen during summer, and only one case where it made any sense for one to be thrown at her.

Wind wiped the snow out of her eyes frantically, desperate for her conclusion to be the right one. She saw him at the edge of the clearing, looking as awed as she felt.

A _child_.

An _Elemental_ child.

Wind flew through the air, circling around the child. How was this even possible? She'd thought, she'd been so sure she was the last one...

The child cupped his hand to make another snowball and threw it gently at her, once more making the greeting that meant to another Elemental that they didn't know each other very well, but the child would like to know her better. It was used among strangers and acquaintances, to show respect or friendliness.

She'd never, _never_ thought she'd need to know that again. She'd never even dreamed it.

The child's expression fell slowly as she simply stared at him, practically stomping on his greeting and the meaning behind it. _Wind, you idiot!_ Hurriedly, she gathered a gust of wind to swirl around him, lifting him briefly above the ground in a gesture that conveyed an intense desire to meet him properly. The child laughed and spun in the current. "Wind!" He cried, "You're part of the Wind clan! You're an Elemental! The stars used to say, but there were never any Elementals where we looked and we just thought we were wrong and then Fearlings and I crashed and I can't get back to the stars and the men are so strange and-"

She cut him off with a gust and a tumble through the air, sweeping her Element around him in an embrace. He laughed giddily as he was lifted off the ground, looking just as thrilled and overwhelmed as Wind was sure she did. Another Elemental!

"Who are you? I thought everyone died in the last battle, but there was so much chaos I guess I might have missed your leaving-I was only a little older than you are, I think," she told him, and he lighted down on the ground.

"I'm a Winter Elemental. Some people call us Ice? Or a lot of things, I guess. My mother sent me of before the last battle started, and then the stars raised me for a while. Where were you this whole time? I thought I looked everywhere! Did you get caught by this planet like I did?"

Wind felt a little faint. She'd come across the _Prince_ of the Elementals. The little Princeling she'd seen from a distance in her youth. There was another Elemental alive and he was the _Prince_. There was a Prince that she was talking to and he was an Elemental and he was _alive_. It boggled the mind, and she just barely remembered to bow deeply and swirl wind around the both of them in a miniature tornado, as was the _proper_ way to greet someone you respected or someone of great status. She suddenly felt very foolish for her actions-tumbling the Prince about as if it was a game-as if he were just another child! If the rumors about the Winter Elementals were true at all, she was incredibly lucky he hadn't decided to be offended.

To her surprise, instead of responding to her greeting, the Prince laughed and beckoned her to stand.

"Don't bow, it's weird. You're my elder _and_ you found me in the middle of nowhere. Did someone tell you I was here? Are there any other Elementals?" He grinned at her.

"...No, Honored Winter, not that I've ever met. I thought I was the last until I met you-completely by accident, I'm afraid. I've been living amongst humans for a long time." She told him, keeping her head down and her hands in a semiformal position-her left curled at her ribcage and her right clasped at her collarbone. The child Prince frowned at her.

"Please, can you stop doing that? We're, well...we're the last, probably. It's not right for me to be above you." He sounded mournful, and Wind thought she understood. Being a Prince would be lonely under ordinary circumstances, but it would almost be a cruel position when you were separated by rank from the only person you could talk to. If what she suspected was true and Winter didn't interact with humans, it would be better for him if she was dead than if she refused contact and affection from the Princeling-he was a child, after all, and Wind berated herself for forgetting that in her surprise. He would need to be raised by an Elemental and taken care of, and while Wind wasn't the best for the job, she was the only one available.

"I think I can manage that," she smiled as reassuringly as possible. "Tell me, Winter, would you like to leave this planet when I do? I can teach you the language men speak and we can travel together. I'm sure it'll be better than being alone."

Winter smiled at her, as bright and blinding as the sun. "Okay!"

She'd introduce him to human society firsthand next time she moved, she decided. Until then she would teach him how to act human-and she would have to make sure absolutely no humans ever found him in this forest. Mister Pitchner lived here, and she'd have to watch out for him.

Kozmotis Pitchner could _not_ be allowed to find the Princeling. _No one_ would discover the child if she had something to say about it.

* * *

I swung up to my ice-tree, exhausted. It had been a great day. Another Elemental! Who'd have thought? And the Kozmotis had played with me this morning, and the day had been beautiful, and there was a crisp taste of natural coldness to the air that meant it would be cold soon.

I heard a chittering behind me and turned to see one of my spider friends on the ground beneath me.

"Icechild! Icechild! We have food for you! You weren't hunting today! What happened? There was a clutch of eggs hatched today! Your web is cold! There's-"

I let the familiar babble of spiders wash over me. While they were capable of great intelligence and seriousness when need be, spiders were very excitable and liked to talk. It was familiar and I was glad to hear it, especially if they had something to eat. I hadn't realized it before, but I was _starving_.

Happy despite my tiredness, I slipped off my tree and landed in the spider.

"Icechild! What was that for? Oh, it doesn't matter! Let's go, let's go!" The spider quickly forgot her indignation and began running with me still on her back. I yelped in surprise before sitting up and enjoying the ride. Spiders were fast!

It didn't take long before we arrived in the land of the spiders. It was deep in the forest, in the part that was dark and thick. The spiderwebs were huge and glimmered like snowdrifts against the trees. I loved it. I thought it was beautiful.

"Where are these hatchlings? I wanna see them, I bet they're so cute!" I demanded, knowing that all the spiders in this community would want to preen about them. Spiders were silly where little ones were concerned.

In an instant, I was herded to the little webs that were developing against trees and between branches. These spiders were tiny compared to the adults, just the length of one finger. Their chittering was almost unintelligible, and they _were_ cute. Their exoskeletons were new and shiny, and their mandibles moved about excitedly. as they felt me approach, some even prepared to hunt me! Such cute little children.

"Hi, little big spiders! I'm an Ice Elemental. How are those webs doing?" I tried to speak to all of them at once, with some success. There was instantly a chorus of salutations and exclamations of success or failure with their webs. Though some of them still tried to poison me. I gently picked those off of myself and placed them back on their webs, hoping I wasn't about to die. I'd been bitten enough by this species that a couple of baby killers wouldn't hurt much, though. Or so I hoped.

I got to visit with the tiny spiders for a long time before the older spiders remembered that I was there and came to give me my food. I didn't question what it was-I probably didn't want to know-and continued telling the baby spiders all about one of the adventures of Galadrian the Light Elemental, from back when Elementals called ourselves by words instead of Elements. Light Elementals weren't true Elementals, but had been a very special kind of human that had been claimed by the Elementals for their ability to use light like I used ice and cold. Sometimes humans could do that, and no one was really sure why. I didn't know whether they could still do that-something to ask the Kozmotis, I supposed. He seemed to know a lot about humans.

Or I could ask Wind, and how incredible was that? There was a Wind here, and I could ask her things, because she was alive!

Before long, though, I finished my story and felt like I was going to fall asleep right where I was. I was sitting with my back to the tree that most of the spiders had been making their webs in, and I had baby spiders perched on my shoulders and head and all over. I shifted just a bit and one of them sleepily threatened to eat me if I moved. I believe that I deserve some recognition for not laughing, the spider was so tiny and sincere.

I still wanted to talk to my bigger spider friends, at least one of whom was laughing at me from his web, and to the stars so I could tell them that Wind was alive, but I supposed I could sit for a little while longer. But only if I didn't close my eyes at all. I wouldn't want...to...fall as...lee...p...

* * *

**Good morning! I'm finally back after my weekend away. It felt like ages, but that was probably because I barely slept. Ha ha...ha...**

**Anyways, spiders are my favorites, because you can't have a proper fantasy story without giant spiders. You just can't.**

**Also, I have a bow~ and arrows~ I'm going to learn to shoot~ yeah, you better run.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	10. WHAT This Has Ten Chapters?

The next day, I woke up covered in webbing and feeling just a smidgen trapped.

I supposed I'd invited this kind of awakening by falling asleep surrounded by spiders. Hopefully I'd be able to sneak off without offending them, though. I wasn't sure what it was supposed to mean that I'd been essentially tied down in my sleep, but I was fairly certain that it meant 'dinner.'

I did not like the idea of being dinner.

I shifted my hand a little and was relieved to find that while I was covered in webs, I was not trapped in them. Not dinner, then. I had been covered like the tree I was leaning on, just another thing to live on, and I would be able to get free just by tearing the webs. That would be awfully rude to the webs' inhabitants, though.

Unfortunately, I couldn't exactly sit there for as long as the spiders lived. That would be a looong time, if what they were telling me was true-they'd said they lived as long as Elementals!

Nonsense, of course, but nice to think about. I'd never met someone who could live that long besides another Elemental before.

Meh, whatever. Lifespan wasn't very important to me, since there was never a guarantee that Fearlings wouldn't kill me tomorrow. No point in having a long lifespan if you might die young anyway.

_Mwahahahahaa! I have captured the Storyteller!_ a tiny spider voice squeaked from the vicinity of my knee. I looked down, moving slowly so as not to disturb the spiderwebs in my hair or the spiders within them.

Sure enough, there was a baby spider on my knee who was almost dancing with glee. Such a cute little thing, but he was dripping venom that was burning through the knee of my pants. And he'd captured me, which probably meant that I _was_ dinner.

_So you have. Are you going to eat me now? _I asked politely. It had never hurt anyone to be nice on their presumable deathbed.

The little spiderlet tapped my knee in indignation. _No! Tell another story!_

Well, he had trapped me fair and square-I couldn't move without disturbing the spiderlets still sleeping on me. According to Elemental tradition, that meant I had to do something for him, and while it wasn't exactly a normal kidnapping request, it was still valid.

_Hey! You wanna hear about the very first Elemental ever to have a familiar?_

It was one of my favorite stories-had been for as long as I could remember. Some Elementals had familiars, animals that they'd bonded with and granted some of their powers. I had always loved that idea-a friend and an equal to play with.

The story goes like this:

Once upon a time, or perhaps beside that time or inside of it or even above it, there was an odd Elemental. He was a Stone Elemental, and as everyone knows Stone Elementals are a bit strange, but this one was particularly unusual.

He lived with a _human_.

Not just any human, either. He lived in the great palace of the ruler of all of the humans on his entire planet.

The Legend was like a king, except he only ruled one planet and he was chosen for his famous adventures rather than birth. Stone had brought the Legend with him on many adventures, possibly because he'd trained the human to attack Stone's enemies. Some of these adventures had been grand, and the title Legend had been bestowed with no hesitation upon the human.

Somehow, Stone had been convinced to _live_ with his human while this was going on. The bond between the two only strengthened with time, and before long Stone could not bear the thought that the Legend would be torn from him. Humans were fragile, and got carried away as often by _sickness_ as by battle, and even simply because they had grown too old! Stone was determined that his human would not encounter the same fate.

After much experimentation and research, and more dumb luck than either of those things, Stone found a way.

He called the Legend to him one day and renewed their bonds of friendship and loyalty before asking the Legend to trust him.

"I had an idea," he told his human earnestly, "and I need your help."

Of course, the Legend agreed to help Stone with whatever he required-the trust between them was old and deep, and the Legend would have followed Stone unquestioningly to death. He didn't even ask what Stone intended to do, such was his trust-though some maintain that that is human nature at work more than decades of friendship.

Regardless of what prompted this decision, Stone's human agreed to help him and Stone was only too happy to try out his idea. He delved deep into his core as if he was going to summon his hardest rock. He dug deeper, deeper, and deeper still until he found what he was looking for-the very core of his magic, called liquid magic by scholars. He dragged it out of himself and to the surface, where it flowed into the Legend as if it had always belonged to the human.

Stone's power was never depleted by this, strangely-some human-lovers even say he became _stronger_. He and his human had many more adventures in their lives, which are stories for another day. But the Legend was rumored to be beloved by all ordinary stones and caves after that, and experienced unusual longevity and vitality for humans-indeed, he could be mistaken for a queerer, weaker version of an Elemental. He fought with Stone for as long as they both lived, and they died together in the Duel of Two Fates after a long, full life together, peaceful and content.

After I finished the story, the baby spider looked up at me from my knee and gave the impression of satisfaction. I realized that I had once again gained a small army of baby spiders in my audience, and I waved to some that I recognized. I didn't think they could take being hit by a snowball yet, tiny and fragile as they were. Maybe after a little while-spiders were so peculiar! At least none of them were sleeping, so I could stand up without worrying about disturbing them.

_And now, I'm afraid, I've been here too long already. I'll come back to visit soon!_

I stood up slowly and carefully, making sure that all of the baby spiders had plenty of warning but no time to try to capture me again. They would get no more stories from me!

Besides that, I had a Kozmotis to visit, and maybe I'd be able to find Wind again!

* * *

**Wow, there are a lot of spiders in this story. About half the working titles of my chapters involve spiders. Oh well, sorry about how short it was, but it would have been weird to have the story and then the actual plot coexist in one chapter. Also, I couldn't make the Stone story longer or it wouldn't be a good folk tale.**

**Thanks to all of my reviewers and my anons, I hope you enjoyed!**

**EDIT: WHATA:SJDFASLDFKASJDF THIS HAS TEN CHAPTERS HOW I DON'T UNDERSTAND I am so happy right now I never thought I would make it to the double digits!**


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